


children of the yellow sun

by seinmit



Series: Writing the Rainbow [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Soulmarks Appear When Tragedy Strikes, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The Major Character Death Warning is Bucky Falling Off the Train, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22458085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seinmit/pseuds/seinmit
Summary: A soulmark wasn’t a death sentence, but it only appeared the moment a love story became a tragedy.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Writing the Rainbow [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1567993
Comments: 13
Kudos: 90
Collections: Writing Rainbow Yellow





	children of the yellow sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GirlOfSaltAndStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GirlOfSaltAndStars/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Thank you to the people who shan't be named here for talking out the structure of this story with me.
> 
> I have a lot more thoughts about worldbuilding than made it into the fic--which already has quite a bit of worldbuilding, so that's saying something--but it's written to be intelligible without any other knowledge. In case you're curious, though, [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zU3U7E1Odc) is the song from Hedwig and the Angry Inch (which summaries Plato, basically) that I was inspired by.

## 1939

Once Steve caught Bucky studying himself in the polished silver surface of his dad’s pocket watch. It had been either dusk or dawn, Steve had been too sick to tell. The light was a murky, underwater color—the yellow of street-lamps not able to fully push back the night but melting it into muck. Steve was deep underwater, his lungs straining to fill themselves and an inexorable pressure pushing out from behind his eyeballs. He was sick, so sick—his body was torn between hot and cold, but the feeling of being _not well_ was undeniable. He woke, or maybe he had been awake for some time—maybe he had been floating in and out of consciousness. It was impossible to say. The only thing Steve remembered was the solemn look on Bucky’s face as he examined every inch of his own skin 

"Vain," Steve huffed, nearly inaudible. Bucky started, enough to jostle Steve’s bed underneath him. 

"Some of us have work in the morning," Bucky said. Even as sick as he was, Steve could clock the strain in that joke. 

"C’mere," Steve said. He raised his hand to grab Bucky, but he couldn’t manage it—it flopped around like a suffocating fish. It was enough that Bucky leaned over him, concerned. 

"What—can I get you something—"

"Shhh," Steve said. Bucky shut up. 

Steve looked at his familiar face. He was exhausted, big purple bags under each eye. There was a dying-grass undertone to his skin, his habitual golden color gone sallow. His eyes were red-rimmed from crying he wouldn’t admit to. Steve wanted to think that he looked even worse than Steve himself did, but he knew that was probably a crock of shit. 

There was nothing new, though. No spreading discoloration, no streak of inhuman shine. Not even the beginnings of a mark, in the slow-growth way they sometimes showed up with illness. Just a beloved, exhausted, suffering face. 

"Huh," Steve said. "Is that…"

What little color Bucky had retained drained out of him, swirling away. He swayed visibly and his mouth parted—no sound came out. Steve used every bit of his stubbornness to raise his hand and brush his knuckles over Bucky’s cheekbone. He made as if to sock him one, a tiny kiss of a punch.

"Nah," he said, finally. "No mark. Just ugly." 

Bucky’s eyes widened and then narrowed—and then, incongruously, welled with tears. 

"Jesus Christ, Steve," he said. "You’re a fucking asshole. You must be feeling better." 

He blinked the wetness away, looking off somewhere into the distance. 

"Not today, then," Bucky said, finally. 

"Maybe," Steve said and drifted back into sleep.

## 1943

"Didya see Susan Leidecker’s face?" Steve said, walking into the apartment. He set his keys down on the little table by the door and went to get himself a glass of water from the sink. "Peter must have gotten his letter." 

There had been a silver streak over her eyes, from temple to the dimple on her cheek. It had the sheen of a fresh wound. She had been walking back from teacher’s college, when Steve saw her, clutching her bag like she was going to hit the next person who asked her about her husband. Steve had given her a wide berth, but he had noticed—everyone must have. 

Bucky didn’t say anything. 

"Buck?" Steve said, glass in hand. He turned to look—Bucky was at the kitchen table. There were papers in front of him. He was looking at them, but his eyes were distant. 

Steve whipped his head around to check a mirror—it was just himself, his face. Ruddy and pale skin, the only gold on his head. He took a deep breath, in and out, and went to the table. He put his glass of water in front of Bucky. 

"You’re going to come home," Steve said, pulling a chair around. He sat close enough to Bucky that his knees were brushing Bucky’s upper thigh. He wanted to point out that he didn’t have a mark, but Bucky surely noticed that himself—and anyway, that didn’t necessarily mean anything. 

Bucky shook his head. Steve’s stomach was trying to tie itself into a knot, but he ignored it. 

"You’re coming home," Steve repeated. He pushed all of his conviction into his voice to cover up the shake—he was used to doing that, in one way or another. He reached for Bucky’s hand, covering it with his own—the contrast between their skin tones made Bucky look more golden than usual, which made Steve’s heart pound. 

Bucky twisted his hand underneath Steve’s hand and brought it up to his own cheek, pressing it against his skin. This was a level of overt affection they typically avoided outside of their bedroom, and even with the dire circumstances it sent a frisson of excitement through Steve’s blood. 

"It’s a good war," Steve said. "You support it. I support it. You can make a real difference."

"I know," Bucky said. His voice was calm. He looked up, finally. "I’m not afraid of a fight." 

He said it like he was trying to persuade himself. Steve nodded empathetically. 

"You’ll show those Nazis what for," Steve said. He maybe overshot his forced cheerfulness. 

Bucky’s lower lip wobbled, just for a moment, before tightening. 

"Yeah," he said. "And then I’ll come home. Better not rent out my share of the apartment." 

"I’m going to come with you," Steve said instantly. This was even more reason to keep trying the enlistment offices. 

Bucky’s hand went tight around Steve’s, crushing his fingers together. 

"Yeah," he said. "Sure." 

Steve couldn’t help but scowl and look away. The patronizing edge to that agreement was enough he stood up and went back to the sink, got another glass of water. 

"Can we not fight tonight?" Bucky said, plaintive. "I picked up a bottle of bourbon on the way home. I want to get drunk."

Steve met his own eyes in the mirror, but his gaze inevitably drifted back down across his skin. Nothing. That had to be a good sign. Soulmarks weren’t a death sentence, but they appeared in the moment where a love story became a tragedy. They were common for soldiers and the lovers they left behind. Soldiers died or they came home different, marked by the war. Sometimes the person they left had something happen. All that separation gave a lot of space for sorrow. 

But Steve’s skin was clear. Some people didn’t think that men could get marks for other men, but Steve had known fellas with bright gold across their faces that no one would mistake for silver. It could be Steve and Bucky weren’t soulmates. Not all lovers were.

But maybe, also, maybe it meant Bucky was coming back and they’d get a happy ending. 

"Yeah," Steve said, finally, turning around. He smiled at Bucky, felt it crooked on his face. "I’ll even let you win at cards." 

"That’s a lie," Bucky said. His smile was grateful as he got up and retrieved some whitefish salad he must have brought home from the deli, putting it in front of Steve. 

He took his cue and they didn’t speak of war for the rest of the night.

## 1945

By the time they got to camp, none of the Howlies could look him in the face. Steve had been too focused on getting Zola into custody, finishing the mission, to notice for a long time. The mission was the most important thing, now. There had to be a reason, as small and insignificant as it was. When they had Zola, Steve wouldn’t let any of his men take over containing him. Steve was going to do it. He hauled Zola over two hundred miles, personally, by truck and by foot, without speaking a word. Zola tried to talk to him; he ignored him. 

When the men tried to speak with him, he ignored them, as well—more gently, but as implacably. He gave the orders he needed to give and folded himself up into the protective silence he needed to get through this. Even when they tried to comfort him, though, he noticed the way they couldn’t quite meet his eyes.

It was only after, days after, when he stepped in the lukewarm humidity of the officer showers and saw himself in the mirror, that he put together what the avoidance meant. 

When he had first saw himself after the serum, there had been a strange sort of double-vision. His face was simultaneously totally foreign and completely familiar. It was like he finally saw _himself_ in the mirror, instead of the slim body that didn’t feel like it belonged to him —and yet, he didn’t recognize himself at all. He had spent at least an hour running the pads of his fingers over the strong line of his new jaw, the thick muscles in his neck. He familiarized himself with the guy that he privately thought, now that he’d seen him, Steve was always supposed to be. 

He thought of that moment now. There was a splatter of fierce gold across his face, shockingly bright, covering nearly his whole face from forehead to chin. It was so marked that it seemed almost like someone had splashed paint on him. The color was sunny yellow, rich and startling. It couldn’t possibly pass for silver or a birthmark or anything other than what it was—Steve’s soul, scarred and aching from the loss of the man he loved, written on his skin. It was exactly as it should be. 

There was a strange pleasure in looking at it. He and Bucky had grown up together, fallen in love, entwining into one like two trees planted in the same plot. And now Bucky was dead. The gold was the strange, too-tender part of himself that had never seen light, because Bucky’s body had always been pressed right next to it. Like rolls baked together—the parts that touched were paler color than the tops. They were torn asunder and Steve knew that for the rest of his life, no matter what happened and whoever he ended up loving, he’d bear a scar. He was glad everyone could see, that no one could deny it.

For the first time, he understood why some of the girls back home had bought silver makeup flecked with mica to make artificial soulmarks. He had thought it morbid and it was—but makeup couldn’t bring a lover home or sentence him to death. And if the actual result was out of your hands, maybe it was easier to have people think that your love story was a tragedy than think it wasn’t a love story at all.


End file.
